MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter
Marie Rohde | Jul. 1, 2013
Pages and pages of paperwork documenting clergy sex abuse in the Milwaukee archdiocese were released Monday afternoon, providing insight to priest abuse cases over the years as well as New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s request to move church assets to protect them from a bankruptcy filing before he left Milwaukee in 2009.
Jeff Anderson, a lawyer representing the victims of clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese, said in a press conference Monday that the newly released documents show that decisions were made to move $147 million to a fund for cemetery maintenance and to parishes under Dolan, then archbishop of Milwaukee. Anderson said the Vatican acted with unprecedented speed to approve the transfer of the money.
Anderson said the request to move the money was made in a June 4, 2007, letter to the Vatican and was approved July 18, 2007.
Anderson compared the speed of the money transfer to the years it took to act on abusive priests. Specifically, he said, Fr. John Wagner was accused of abusing 10 minors, and though he admitted some of the misconduct, he remained a priest for more than seven years after the allegations were made.
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